What has two thumbs, an amazing smile, and exceptional athleticism, even if his name is humdrum?WBO Welterweight Champion Timothy Bradley! Good morning y’all!

What’s crack-a-lackin’ folks? It’s another star-studded edition of Funny Names in the News. I told Arto I was gonna write this last night (and wrote those first two sentences then) but sleep happens and I’m writing this now as your morning salute.

So in news that was kinda news two months ago, they found a Yellow-Bellied Sea Snakein California. Luckily that story didn’t really amount to more yellow-bellied sea snakes, but it was an unusual sighting.

That reminds me of the time Arto dressed up as a birdwatcher for an Environmental Themed Halloween party. Being the fabulous Finn that he is, he brought a list of funny bird names to find…

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Somber Tit

Chaco Chachalaca

and so on. It was good clean fun for the whole family! But he was unsuccessful at spotting birds.

Arto was a remarkably unsuccessful bird watcher, and didn’t see a single Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker that night… or ever. He did find his wife, who dressed up as a not-very-functional wind turbine, stole his “binoculars” and they lived happy ever after. OK, that didn’t happen that night… they had met way before that. But he did find a beverage. Success!

In “Things Dave Saw on Facebook That Luckily Didn’t Get Worse,” there was an Amber Alert near Waxahatchie, Texas, which is kinda near where Kerbey is from! Not really, but it is in Texas. But Texas is a huge state. Huger than most countries. I haven’t heard or read any updates on the story, so I hope it has come to a peaceful and positive resolution.

The Queen being awesome. Pondering whether to bestow knighthood upon Dick Trickle or Dave. Probably Dick Trickle is the better choice.

In Fantastic News Paying Honor to Fallen Nascar Comrades, there was the recent announcement of the Dick Trickle movie! They released the trailer ofr it! The movie is called “White Knight” which is a pretty cool thing to have your movie named after. I want to be a knight. I guess people call me Sir every once in a while. That counts right? Or maybe it doesn’t, since they’re not British… and they’re not people with remarkable longevity who like to dress to the nines and photobomb people’s selfies.

OK, so we’ve established that I’m not a knight. And it’s not even 9am yet.

In news that’s about “football” that has no pigskin or bulky Americans, our BoFN version of Mister Finntastic, Arto Whatshisnaaaaaame brings us this fantastic news update, or as he describes it, a “FNITN Ditty.”

“Port Vale owner Norman Smurthwaite was so pissed off by his team’s loss that he put his whole club up for sale!”

Hint, “football” is soccer. Or “Association Football,” which may have been shortened to “Assoc” which then morphed into Soccer, which is a far more clear term. Even if the Queen wouldn’t call it that.

I wonder if Mr. Smurthwaite will accept Ikea Credit, or a Master Promissory Note for med school loans that is rapidly approaching $100,000 in less than two years. If so, I guess my dream of owning an Association Football team will just have to remain a dream. Not that I really dream about that. But hey, it’s not like a team gets put up for sale too often. Assoc! Gylfi Sigurdsson! Set Pieces! Fishing and stuff (that Gylfi Sigurdsson post was fun)! Woo!

That’s all for now. Until next week, make sure not to get bitten by any venomous, unusual, yellow-bellied sea snakes. Please! We love our readers too much and want y’all to stay alives! Happy Friday!

Wow, how embarrassing! This is the first Funny Names in the News since October 16. SOMEBODY has been a bit off his game. Oh well, hopefully it was a triumphant return! “Don’t call it a comeback!” said LL Cool J, and LL Cool Dave!

Yes, of course, we knew that. 🙂 We actually had a guy at church named James get on stage a couple months ago and do a rendition of LL’s “I Need Love” with his smooth moves and all. It was not very churchy, but it made us laugh.

Me, too. I had to sing harmony on Katy Perry’s “Roar” recently as well, but we did not dress like she did in the video. I suppose you are right that not everyone has pop trivia lolling about in their skulls. It is a crime to think someone might not know what LL means, but most hip-hop acronyms are objectionable. Take OPP for instance.

When you first talked about the Roar video, I was thinking of the Firework video. I’d have loved to see Kerbey with fireworks shooting out of your chest.

Then I thought Roar was when she dressed up kind of like a boxer, but that was for the VMA performance only. But Tarzan outfits. That sounds like good fun. Wow I’m out of the loop. But at least I know what LL Cool J means!

Yes, Waxahachie, north of Corsicana, which has the best fruitcake in the country, or so they claim. It is indeed fine, but I am quite partial to fruitcake slathered with liquor, and this does not come liquor-slathered. Sad about the Amber Alert; I hope Miss Upchurch is found. We seem to constantly have AAlerts on the highway signs, sometimes for stolen old people. Who is kidnapping coots? And I believe one should say Waxahachie like Wok, upon which you cook stir-fry. It’s almost as good as Weeki Wachee, Florida.

As for a White Knight, I cannot see it, as it too closely resembles the “Dark Knight,” and I hated that movie with a fierce passion (evidently the rest of the US loved it, but then again Trump is leading in polls so there you go as far as public perception). Trickle is a lovely, if not image-inducing, name, as is Smurthwaite (Smurf, Wait!!). The sea snake is clearly the devil. He even has a leopard tail. Well, it’s not a tail. What do you call the end of the snake? Oh, this might go in a tawdry direction.

Do they do your Amber Alerts through cell phones? Sometimes that happens to us… once every few months most of the phones in the area will get an Amber Alert notice. It doesn’t come as a text, but it does come as a notification. No words on the results of those.

I wager that Miss Upchurch left with Casper of her own accord to make poor regrettable decisions, as most 17 yr olds do. And as I have a flipphone, no, I do not receive texts. But I think more modern people do.

We must go to Weeki Wachee! We must! They have mermaids there, live ones. I don’t know about snake anatomy, but I learned: “At the end of the ventral scales of the snake is an anal plate which protects the opening to the cloaca (a shared opening for waste and reproductive material to pass) on the underside near the tail.” So that’s fun.

Let’s make it happen! I met up with Amb in Florida many moons ago (well, at least before I was in med school, because I was in Orlando interviewing at Univ of Central Florida), so maybe Florida is a good meeting place for BoFN peeps!

Now you’ve gotten me thinking about mermaids that are half snake instead of half fish. I’m intrigued. Sounds like something a fantasy writer would have dreamed up.

And that little snake snippet makes me so glad I’m studying human anatomy, and not other random creatures like I had to learn about in one or two of my undergraduate bio classes. Humans are more interesting than snakes and their cloacas. And please trust me that cloacas are far from the most disgusting things you hear about in animal physiology. fun. With a small f. fun. tons of fun

I share you views on Dark Knight, Kerbey, even though I didn’t see it (for the same reason I didn’t see Texas Chainsaw Massacre–apologies to Texas). The trailers looked seriously distrubing, and I was put off that everyone enthused over it so much. It seems plausible to me that Heath Ledger’s death may be at least partly due to taking on the Joker role, then having to dope himself up to cope with it.

Whoa… there’s a blast from the past! Good to see your name again! Hope life’s treating you well up in the Northwest! We’re still carrying on… have brought some new writers into the fold and are doing what we can to help enrich the world with funny names

How far around the world would I have to travel to get photobombed by the Queen? What a hoot. And Arto list of birds, we have “Bush Tits” in this part of the world. Maybe I should not have mention that near the Dick Trickle movie.

“. . . Reach for the sky! Dave’s groundbreaking post includes priceless behind-the-scenes footage of Arto with his bride to be, during his audition for the part of Woody in the live action version of Toy Story. . . .”